The city where cars go to die

Something that's struck me here is the proliferation of half-buried car parts on street corners—mostly axles, but also camshafts and other parts that I can't really identify.

I thought that they were to protect pedestrians from corner-cutting cars, but I've been told that they are actually there to protect the buildings (!).

The poetic part of me sees them as the bones of long-dead vehicles, sticking out of the ground as if the city were built on a vehicle burial ground.

Piñata

Sam went to his first Piñata today. He had cake, chuchitos, sucked on a lollypop for two seconds, ate and crushed some chips and ran around like a maniac with all the other little kids.

When it came to hitting the Piñata he was a bit more hesitant.

Chatty Kid, Part 2

Tonight we were out for a meal, and Sam was getting antsy so he & I stepped outside for a breather.

Crawling across a ledge was a MASSIVE cockroach. How massive was it? When Sam saw it, he did the baby sign for "bird".

Now THAT'S large-scale vermin!

Beware the Burning Squash

There is a funny squash-like veggie down here called a chayote—it looks like an avacado-shaped butternut squash, and tastes a little like, well, squash. I was preparing one for a stew a while back when Gaby warned me "be careful handling that. It will burn your hands. You have to cut off the top & rub it until it froths."

"You're full of it, woman" I replied. "Vegetables don't burn your fingers. And if it did, frothing the end wouldn't do a thing."

Well, I don't know if it was a "burn" exactly, but I have to admit that after cutting it with a knife and handling it, my fingers turned green, went numb and the skin felt stiff. Like a chemical burn, anyway. It was very uncomfortable for about a day.

Gaby, of course, laughed at me the whole time, stopping only to waggle a curved index finger at me and say "I told you so!"

Shouldn't they put warning labels on those things?

Sam's Trip to Mexico

What Sam most enjoyed about Mexico was the pool at the hotel. Having just learned to say "agua" (water), Sam relished screaming out agua! each time we were near the pool.

Hey, chica

Sam did not enjoy the heat. (Pat's note—the heat topped up at 42°C during our stay.) We dressed him up in a cool Guayabera (a cotton pleated and embroidered dress shirt that is popular in the area) but that did not seem to help much at all.

Sam seemed to have also been quite unhappy with his parents' interest in nice restaurant meals and leisurely capuccinos. He has developed a rather annoying (but effective) strategy of using his full lung potential express his dissatisfaction.

In Mexico, despite himself, Sam made a friend. The young daughter of a friend became our companion for some pool, beach, and out-of-city outings. Sam was very jealous at first that anyone other than himself should get any attention, but after a couple of days he squealed with upset anytime she left.

One of Sam's biggest highlights of the trip was his realization that he was riding on a plane. Currently focused on any means of transportation that rolls, Sam was very excited to figure out that he was actually on a plane—and would stretch out his arms to make the baby sign for "plane" until he became red (for some reason, making the plane sign also means that he doesn't breathe).

The Yellow City

This week, Gaby presented at an Anthropology conference in Mérida, which is the largest Mexican city in the Yucatán peninsula. We also happen to really like it, so it became a vacation and Sam & I went along for the ride.

I'll talk about Merida some other time (and I did! See this post on Merida)—in the meantime, let me tell you about the nearby town of Izamal, one of the strangest, most fascinating places I've seen. Izamal is nicknamed "the Yellow City", for reasons made apparent by the picture below:


Yes, the whole downtown is yellow. Paint sale at Glidden? A city council elected on a pro-obsessive-compulsive platform? Yellow rain? A promotion for Sunlight dishwashing liquid? (hey—Barbie did pink in the UK)

Don't ask me—I have no idea.

Here are some more shots (click through for full-size):

Smack in the middle of town is a massive monestary, built on top of (and from the stones of) a former Mayan temple. It is a stunning piece of architecture that was started in 1533—some mere 40 years after Columbus.


Embedded in the town's low horizon are huge lumpy hills—in fact, pre-columbian Mayan pyramids. Unlike most other sites, where you ride a bus for an hour into the jungle or countryside, these temples are actually encorporated into the town, surrounded by houses.

Despite being more or less between tourist-ridden Mérida and Chichen Itzá, Izamal is largely ignored by the hoards—which gives the town a slightly spooky quiet. Combining that with the colour scheme and the architectural features, I found it a fascinating, slightly surreal place. Well worth the visit!

I have a few more shots up on Flickr, if you're interested.